1 . The recent wildfires in California had negative effects on many communities, including the students and staff of Paradise High School in Paradise, Calif. Many students and staff members lost their homes in the fire, which either destroyed or significantly damaged eight of the nine school buildings in the district.

However, it wasn’t all bad news for the students and staff members, who were also the benefactors of an extremely generous businessman who saw an opportunity to help. That man was Bob Wilson, a 90-year-old real estate developer who decided that he was going to personally help each and every member of the school district.

Wilson, who also owns restaurants and does business out of San Diego, arrived at Paradise High School last week with two briefcases filled with $1,000 checks. Each of the check had a specific name on it: the name of a high school student or staff member at the school. Nobody was left out. Wilson’s gesture would be extended to 980 students along with 105 employees. Janitors (看门工), teachers, bus drivers, and office workers were all included.

Wilson even thought about the best way to go about giving out the gifts so that each person could get the maximum possible benefit from his generosity. Originally, he was working with local non-profit organizations so that he could purchase gift cards, but he thought better of it since he realized that cash would be more helpful to many. He decided to give out checks so that the recipients could spend the money as they see fit.

“I made the decision within two or three minutes of reading the news, that I would like to give these kids something,” Wilson explained to NBC News. “So they could have some good times and I could put a smile on their faces and maybe lift their spirits.”

1. How much did Wilson give out to the students and staff of Paradise High School?

A．$105000.	B．$980000.
C．Nearly $1100000.	D．Almost $10000000.

2. Why did Wilson give out the money?

A．To show his love of the school.	B．To relieve the bad effect of wildfires.
C．To reward his old school.	D．To enlarge the influence of his business.

3. What is the biggest benefit of the new way to give out?

A．To satisfy various demands.	B．To save more trouble.
C．To shorten delivery time.	D．To reduce donation cost.

4. What newspaper section is the text probably taken from?

A．Education.

B．Entertainment.

C．Nature.

D．News.

2 . Learning to read provides foundation for future learning in all areas of study. And experts say students need to have a working knowledge of 10,000 words. Now, a new vocabulary program claims to greatly speed up a child’s understanding of language.     1     , which uses pictures and short word exercises to improve a student’s performance on tests.

Sofia Fenichell created the system.     2     “We call it the 10,000-word journey. We believe that children can master these words from the age of seven to 17. And they don’t have to cram (临时 死记硬背).     3    . We’ re accelerating their ability to communicate, as well as improving their reading and writing”   she said.

Each word in the Mrs. Wordsmith system of teaching has a child-friendly definition.     4    .

For example, the word shriveled is defined as “ wrinkled, like hippo skin that’s been in the bath too long. ” Underneath the definition is a drawing of a very wet hippopotamus. There are also exercises to help strengthen the student’s understanding.

Fenichell spoke at a recent education technology show in London.     5    . “The teachers are reporting back that the kids love it. They want to do more, they’ re putting it in their writing, and they’re learning more words. It’s so easy to teach them the vocabulary. Little children are using words like： ‘ the brazen(厚颜无耻的)attitude of the British in World War Two’ , and teachers are writing to us and saying they can’t believe how much their writing has improved. ”

Mrs. Wordsmith is now set to expand into schools in other countries, including the United States.

A．Words bring meaning to life

B．It is called Mrs. Wordsmith

C．Children will search for the right words to use

D．And each word has a picture showing how the word is used

E．She said the Mrs. Wordsmith system has been popular in schools across Britain

F．She worked with researchers from Cambridge University in Britain to develop the list of words

G．These words are typically the words they find in the books they read, in newspapers, in adult conversation

3 . 你校英语报针对在校师生表达思想、记录信息的方式开展了调查，请根据图表(pie chart)中调查结果写一篇题为Handwriting or Typing?的短文投稿，内容包括：
1.简述调查结果；
2.提出自己的看法并陈述理由。

注意：
1.词数100词左右；
2.短文的题目已为你写好。

Handwriting or Typing?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4 . For the students, researchers or simple lovers of knowledge and art, it is a privilege to have a free virtual library at hand, being able to download important texts without spending a single dollar.

◆Internet Archive

It is a non-profit digital library created in 1996 by Brewster Kahle. In addition to millions of books available to the general public, it also hosts a large number of video (movies), audio (music) and software files, etc. It is not necessary to register to access the information, so any user can easily view and download it, although those who decide to register obtain other benefits such as access to more than 1.3 million copyrighted e-books.

◆InfoBooks

Read, Learn, Grow… is the slogan of the digital library. It is divided into three sections to facilitate the search for content, and the first called “Best books to read” focuses on a special collection of various topics classified by famous authors. The second is “Free books and texts”, where you will find public domain literature that you can download, and the third section contains resources to improve your reading.

◆Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is a site that has available sixty thousand “free” books that are free of copyright so to speak, since the rights according to certain laws have expired in this case. That is why they can be downloaded with total peace of mind. The Project Gutenberg also has an Open Audio book Collection, almost 5,000 titles from 2023, via a Project Gutenberg collaboration with Microsoft and MIT. These use neural text-to-speech technology for more natural-sounding computer-generated audio books. These audio books are also available on major music/podcast platforms.

1. What most attracts users to Internet Achive?

A．Private software files.

B．Easy access to plenty of e-books.

C．Classic music of limited edition.

D．Various movies of authorized edition.

2. How can we find the works of Mark Twain most precisely?

A．Search InfoBooks, Section 1 online.

B．E-mail Brewster Kahle to obtain directly.

C．Download Software files from Internet Achive.

D．Wait for distributions from Project Gutenberg.

3. What does Project Gutenberg have in common with Internet Archive?

A．Audio resources are provided online.

B．Materials can be adjusted to different users.

C．Copyrights of some books are out of date.

D．They provide reading strategies training.

5 . A physical checkup often begins with a series of questions: What foods do you eat? Do you smoke? Getting any exercise? New research suggests another telling indicator could be added to that list: What was your college major? The study finds one’s chosen field of college study is a statistically significant predictor of health in midlife.

The researchers find the four majors associated with the best midlife health are architecture/engineering, biology/life sciences, business, and—here’s a surprise—communications/journalism. Perhaps chasing after big stories keeps us journalists in shape.

It has long been established that people with more education tend to be healthier. But does one’s major matter? To find out, the researchers analyzed data from the nationally representative American Community Survey.

Their sample consisted of 3.7 million United States-born adults between the ages of 45 and 64—the time of life when physical functioning problems start to appear. Participants noted whether they had difficulty walking or climbing stairs, dressing or bathing. A “yes” answer in any of those categories resulted in a grade of relatively poor health.

The researchers focused on the 667,362 participants who earned a bachelor’s degree, but went no further in their education. They noted each person’s college major, which they placed into one of 15 categories. They found substantial differences in health across majors. Two majors are particularly disadvantaged in midlife. The chances of poor health are 1.9 times greater among psychology /social work and law/public policy majors compared to business majors. The researchers argue this is likely due to several factors. Psychology majors tend to suffer from high unemployment and low earnings. Law/public policy majors often enter the field of law enforcement(执行).

The researchers say that they have discovered associations, not proof of causality(因果关系). But they make a convincing case that some majors lead people to live healthier lifestyles than others.

Their findings might even inspire a warning country song: Mammas, don’t let your babies grow up to be psychology majors.

1. What can be learned from the first two paragraphs?

A．Smoking can lead to poor health.	B．Diet is more important than exercise.
C．Physical checkups keep you healthy.	D．College major chould be added to a checkup.

2. How do researchers draw their conclusions?

A．By doing face-to-face interviews.	B．By following participants’ daily routines.
C．By doing medical examinations.	D．By analyzing the representative data.

3. Which of the following is against midlife health according to the researchers?

A．Engineering.

B．Business.

C．Psychology.

D．Agriculture.

4. What is the best title of the passage?

A．College majors can predict midlife health.

B．More majors in college can improve health.

C．The annual physical exam is necessary to life.

D．People with more education tend to be healthier.

6 . Researchers have long thought that rewards like food or money encourage learning in the brain by causing the release of dopamine (多巴胺), known to enhance the storage of new information. Now, a new study describes how learning still occurs in the absence of rewards.

The study explored the relationship between dopamine and acetylcholine (乙酰胆碱). Past research had shown that they compete with one another. To provide some clarity, the study authors focused on when and under what circumstances dopamine levels are high at the same time as acetylcholine levels are low. They found that this situation occurs frequently, even in the absence of rewards.

“Our findings challenge the current understanding of when and how dopamine and acetylcholine work together,” said study lead author Anne Krok. “Rather than creating unique conditions for learning, rewards take advantage of a mechanism that is already in place and is constantly at work.”

The study team gave dozens of mice access to a wheel on which they could run or rest. On occasion, the researchers offered the animals a drink of water. Then they recorded the mice’s brain activity and measured the amount of dopamine and acetylcholine released at different moments. As expected, the drink treats created the typical patterns of dopamine and acetylcholine release that are prompted by rewards. However, the team also observed that before receiving water treats, dopamine and acetylcholine already followed “rise and fall” cycles approximately twice every second. Krok notes that this pattern continued regardless of whether the mice were running or standing still. “Similar brain waves have been observed in humans during periods of self-examination and rest,” she adds.

“These results may help explain how the brain learns on its own, without the need for external rewards,” said study senior author Nicolas Tritsch.

Tritsch says, “The results of the study may also offer insight into new ways of understanding depression. Lack of motivation is a common symptom of depression, making it challenging to perform basic tasks. It is possible that a disruption (扰乱) in the internal-drive system might be contributing to this issue.”

1. What does the new study find about dopamine and acetylcholine?

A．Their competitive relationship.

B．The effective cooperation between them.

C．Their existing working mechanism.

D．The role they play in information storage.

2. What do the experiments on mice show?

A．How mouse brains process new information.

B．The release patterns of dopamine and acetylcholine.

C．What causes the release of dopamine and acetylcholine.

D．The difference between mouse brain waves and those of humans.

3. What might be the cause of depression according to the text?

A．Lack of motivation.

B．Lack of external rewards.

C．The inability to deal with tasks.

D．The disorder of the internal-drive system.

4. What is the main idea of the text?

A．Learning ability can be improved constantly.

B．Learning can occur without external rewards.

C．Rewards encourage learning in the brain.

D．Dopamine release is the key to learning.

7 . A self-described “girly girl”, nine-year-old Zandra Cunningham was constantly begging her parents for the latest beauty products. One day her dad simply told her “no”, which inspired her to make her own.

Zandra has been recognized by Entrepreneur magazine as one of the youngest millionaires in America. When asked about her experience as a child entrepreneur (企业家), Zandra says, “It wasn’t frightening. When you’re young, you don’t have that fear mentality. ‘Maybe it’s not going to work’ never really crossed my mind.” For Zandra, it became a challenge to separate her personal interest from what her customers actually wanted. “There were a lot of things that I felt were good ideas, but they wouldn’t fit into the market,” she says. Being part of the market herself, Zandra felt she had a unique perspective that allowed her to truly listen and respond to her customers.

It started as a hobby for Zandra and her mom. They’d play around with different ingredients until they found formulas they liked “through trial and error”. Slowly, they started transforming the pastime into a brand. Zandra began selling her products at local markets, and a few years later—when Zandra was 12 years old — the family started a shop for Zandra Beauty. At the time, Zandra Beauty was one of the first brands to offer plant-based and organic beauty products at an affordable price. The 21-year-old has essentially grown up alongside her brand—but her goals have remained the same: “Our main focus is to push out amazing products that are safe for everyone and the earth.”

“There’re so many brands doing similar things, but there’s still so much room to grow,” says Zandra. “Your customers are out there, and you just have to find something that’s going to set you apart.”

1. What can be inferred from Zandra’s words in paragraph 2?

A．Her young mind made her fearless.

B．Her parents supported her greatly.

C．She had much precious experience.

D．She was always very caring.

2. Which of the following is the most important in Zandra’s opinion?

A．Sharing her personal interests.	B．The diversity of hobbies.
C．Changing the global market.	D．The need of customers.

3. What kind of product does Zandra mainly pursue?

A．The one that is cheap and useful.

B．The one that is enjoyed by her mom.

C．The one that is created by trial and error.

D．The one that is reliable and eco-friendly.

4. What is Zandra’s attitude towards the future of her brand?

A．Hopeful.

B．Concerned.

C．Doubtful.

D．Relieved.

8 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

South Koreans have enjoyed their first close-up look of new baby giant pandas at a name-revealing ceremony that is also     1     early celebration of the 100 days since the twins’ birth.

What to name the twin sisters was widely discussed among netizens after they were born on July 7 in theme park Everland. The names were     2     (ultimate) decided on through two public voting     3     (procedure). One is named Rui Bao, which means wise treasure, and the other is Hui Bao or shining treasure. Half a million panda lovers helped choose their names with a handful of lucky fans     4     (invite) to the ceremony. “They are even     5     (cute) in real life than they appear on screen,” said a college student in attendance.

The baby pandas,     6     have just begun teething and crawling, are very healthy. Everland has shared videos documenting the pandas’ growth online. The twins’ birth has gained 640,000 views since it     7     (upload). “This feels like a great opportunity to call for better     8     (preserve) of pandas,” said Donghee Chung, head of the park’s zoo. Chung noted that between 40% and 50% of panda births result     9     twins.

Everland said it would monitor the twins’ health     10     (determine) when the twins are ready to be open to the public.

9 . Scientists have been experimenting with playing sounds to plants since at least the 1960s, during which time they have been exposed to everything from Beethoven to Michael Jackson. Over the years, evidence that this sort of thing can have an effect has been growing. One paper, published in 2018, claimed that an Asian shrub known as the telegraph plant grew substantially larger leaves when exposed to 56 days of Buddhist music — but not if it was exposed to Western pop music or silence. Another, published last year, found that marigolds and sage plants exposed to the noise of traffic from a busy motorway suffered growth difficulty.

Plants have been evolving (进化) alongside the insects that eat them for hundreds of millions of years. With that in mind, Heidi Appel, a botanist now at the University of Houston, and Reginald Cocroft, a biologist at the University of Missouri, wondered if plants might be sensitive to the sounds made by the animals with which they most often interact. They recorded the vibrations made by certain species of caterpillars (毛毛虫) as they chewed on leaves. These vibrations are not powerful enough to produce sound waves in the air. But they are able to travel across leaves and branches, and even to neighbouring plants if their leaves touch.

They then exposed tobacco plant — the plant biologist’s version of the laboratory mouse — to the recorded vibrations while no caterpillars were actually present. Later, they put real caterpillars on the plants to see if exposure had led them to prepare for an insect attack. The results were striking. Leaves that had been exposed had significantly higher levels of defensive chemicals, making them much harder for the caterpillars to eat. Leaves that had not been exposed to vibrations showed no such response. Other sorts of vibration — caused by the wind, for instance, or other insects that do not eat leaves — had no effect.

“Now speakers with the right audio files are more often being used to warn crops to act when insects are detected but not yet widespread,” says Dr. Cocroft. “Unlike chemical pesticides, sound waves leave no dangerous chemicals.”

1. What can we learn about plants from the first paragraph?

A．They may enjoy Western music.	B．They can’t stand Buddhist music.
C．They can react to different sounds.	D．They can make different sounds.

2. What’s the basis for Appel and Cocroft’s research?

A．Plants can make a cry for help.	B．Plants evolve alongside insects.
C．Plants are sensitive to the sounds.	D．Plants have been studied for years.

3. What can we infer about plants from Paragraph 3?

A．They can recongnize harmful vibrations.	B．They look like laboratory mice.
C．They can threaten the caterpillars.	D．They can release poisonous chemicals.

4. What does the last paragraph mainly talk about?

A．Disadvantages of chemical pesticides.	B．Application of the experimental results.
C．Interaction between plants and insects.	D．Warning system of widespread insects.

10 . Packing up my luggage, I felt a wave of fear. Maybe tomorrow’s flight would be ________ and I didn’t have to go after all — I ________ hoped. It was May 2022, and I’d ________ my job in London to begin a year-long journey around the world.

I loved to travel and had been ________ to visit many countries with friends and family. This time, I’d be travelling alone, which was pretty ________ for a woman with a disability, though I have learnt to ________ life in a wheelchair since I was 7.

Accessibility isn’t much of a(n) ________ in some countries, but my first ________ on my solo trip was Bali. Although I’d ensured my hotel wouldn’t be a problem, I couldn’t ________ any risks.

“If it doesn’t ________, you can always come home.” my parents ________ me. But I wasn’t going to give up without a ________.

In Bali, the hotel where I stayed was ________ by a kind woman who made sure I had ________ to the shower and anything else I needed. With her help, I made it to a mountain ________ and saw most of the island’s sights. As ________, the view from the top was thrilling.

After that, I made the trip up as I went, staying in a country until I got ________ and moved on to the next. Wherever I went, such as Africa and Asia, I was greatly impressed by the ________ of strangers helping me.

________, I’d visited a total of 66 countries on my own by February 2023. Now, I’m fully ________ that a disability doesn’t have to stop a person from getting out there and seeing the world.

1.

A．arranged

B．analysed

C．booked

D．cancelled

2.

A．curiously

B．secretly

C．doubtfully

D．proudly

3.

A．promised

B．proved

C．found

D．quit

4.

A．sensitive

B．nervous

C．fortunate

D．unwilling

5.

A．disappointing

B．frightening

C．embarrassing

D．exciting

6.

A．object to

B．compare to

C．adapt to

D．belong to

7.

A．issue

B．experience

C．demand

D．benefit

8.

A．collection

B．communication

C．assumption

D．destination

9.

A．rid

B．update

C．organize

D．tolerate

10.

A．work out

B．settle down

C．come out

D．break down

11.

A．believed

B．ignored

C．helped

D．comforted

12.

A．strategy

B．reward

C．fight

D．support

13.

A．challenged

B．run

C．damaged

D．suspected

14.

A．access

B．response

C．reference

D．addiction

15.

A．village

B．range

C．peak

D．stream

16.

A．prepared

B．explained

C．required

D．predicted

17.

A．fascinated

B．bored

C．accustomed

D．amused

18.

A．cruelty

B．stubbornness

C．kindness

D．selfishness

19.

A．To start with

B．From then on

C．Now and then

D．Sooner or later

20.

A．convinced

B．guessed

C．worried

D．questioned